


The Aspirations of Angels and the Instincts of Beasts

by farad



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M, Shadow Riders Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-18
Updated: 2010-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 00:50:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in Maygra's Shadow Riders universe, Josiah walks in on something he regrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Aspirations of Angels and the Instincts of Beasts

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Shadow Riders Universe](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/452) by Maygra. 



> Notes: This vignette is set before Maygra's "Inter Vivos" which is set before "Salt-Laden Whispers in the Wounds of Night".
> 
> Thanks to Dail and Jen for the edits and suggestions – excellent suggestions from both. Any mistakes are entirely my own.

"It ain't what you think."

Josiah didn't turn around. He'd known long before he heard the soft rasp of the words, and before he'd heard the shuffling, slow steps as Vin had made his way down the hallway. The gift of unnatural smell had alerted him as soon as Vin left that room that he was on the way - the two blood scents, Vin's faint human one stronger after a blood-letting coupled with the sickly-sweet, fetid demon blood, and the other smell, barely fainter: sex, male sex.

It had been the first hint, months before, but he had told himself that it was because of the blood-letting, because Chris was close to Vin so much of the time, intimate with his body. Intimate, but not that intimate, not that . . . wrong.

"Josiah," Vin said. "Look at me."

Part of Josiah's mind, the part that was bitterly confused and furious, wanted to deny this, to refuse Vin and Chris anything. It was that part of him that was angry that Chris wasn't the one here, the one trying to explain the inexplicable - and the inexcusable. Despite his will, his mind flashed on the image of Vin's eyes, bright with passion and desire, flaring with an intensity he'd almost forgotten, with a liveliness that had initially scared him - still did, actually, because he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen those eyes that alive. Not that face - as recently as the afternoon, he'd seen those familiar features animated with emotion, laughing and sneering and cursing them, willing them all to die. The eyes in that face, though, had been black as night and bigger than eyes should be.

The eyes he would see now could be those black ones - and in truth, he almost hoped they were there, that the demon was calling to him, seducing Chris, causing the scandal he had just witnessed. He feared that he would look and find them blue - blue and tired and belonging to the man they valued. And if they were, there would be few explanations for what he had seen, and none of them were ones he wanted to consider, none of them were ones he could believe.

He lashed out, kicking at the battered desk that to one side of the room, feeling a certain satisfaction when its bulk shifted reluctantly, the wooden feet scrapping across the bare floor. The desire to lash out again was strong, and he braced himself to kick again, or to punch at something, the desk, or the shelves or the walls themselves, anything that he could pummel.

But the rationality that he had cultivated through most of his life, the rationality that he kept vainly clinging to in the midst of this surreality in which they now lived, teased at the heat of his ire, distracting him with his own curiosity. It was compelled by Vin's request, understanding that Vin was serious, and that he was Vin, not the demon who inhabited him.

Josiah felt the pulse in his jaw as he forced back his fury and turned around. His hands caught up a book from the top of a stack on the desk, gripping it hard enough that he could hear the binding creak. The creaking grew louder as he made himself meet Vin's eyes. As he had feared, they were blue, as blue as they had ever been, bluer, perhaps, set in the paleness of his face.

Vin was himself, or as much himself as he could ever be. That he would allow what Josiah had seen, that he would give himself over to Chris in such a manner -

"It ain't what you think," Vin said again, his voice softer now. He held Josiah's gaze, but Josiah smelled the stir of blood just before he saw the flush of pink that rose in Vin's neck.

"What do I think?" he asked – or tried to; it came out as a snarl and he had to concentrate to stop the change, his body shivering with the initial conversion from human to wolf.

Vin swallowed but his voice was even as he answered. "You think that the demon is using me to seduce Chris, so he can control him, or you're thinking that Chris is using me because, well, because he can. And you might be thinking it's some of both." He took a step forward but wobbled a little. As he reached out and caught the back of the closest chair, some of Josiah's anger eked away.

"Sit down," he snapped, but he took several steps toward Vin and caught one arm just above the elbow, using it to both balance and guide Vin around the back of the chair to take a seat on it.

Vin tried to pull away, but he was weak - which was the whole point of the bloodletting, to keep him too weak for the demon to want to control him. "I'm all right - "

"The hell you are," Josiah cut him off, pulling harder than he usually did. Vin didn't fight him - not that he ever did, not anymore, but right now, in the wake of what Josiah'd discovered, he wondered anew at the passivity. Before all of this, Vin had been easy-going, but he didn't let people run over him or those he cared about. Now he was the last one to stand up for himself; JD was the one who'd noticed it first, years ago, that Vin had stopped asking for things, and when asked a question that involved a preference on his part, he deferred to someone else.

Had Chris been leeching away Vin's will all this time? Had it been going on from the start? Or was it the demon, the seducer, taking a more subtle control over Vin and through him, Chris? Was Buck a part of it, either as a controller or as a victim of the seduction?

That idea, that both Chris and Buck were sharing in Vin's body - that was too big to contemplate. Even bigger was the idea that this had been going one since the start of this nightmare – or maybe even earlier? Josiah's vision dulled, his senses overwhelmed by the thought of it, and it took him a few seconds to understand Vin's words when he spoke.

"I can't tell you that it ain't either of those. Hell, Akmana's been getting stronger, we all know that," Vin went on as he sat heavily. The chair was old, the cushions faded to an indistinct shade of tannish-green, and worn and frayed, the fabric tearing at the corners. It creaked with Vin's weight, but it was used to holding Josiah and Ezra, who spent the most time in here. "But I can tell you that I want it, Josiah - sick as it sounds to you."

Josiah backed away from him, shaking his head. "How in hell do you know what you want? That thing inside you controls what you think, what you do - you said it yourself, he's getting stronger all the time! Do you know who you are anymore? We sure as hell don't!"

Vin's eyes dropped and the blood flushed stronger, the smell momentarily overpowering. Josiah's stomach roiled at the sweetness of the otherworld blood, but he ignored it. Again, he felt a stir of guilt - he had no right to speak to Vin this way. Not Vin, the man he'd known, they'd all known, before this nightmare had started.

But this was too much, too aberrant. For all the ways they'd been forced to change and to accept the change, this thing between Chris and Vin –

"No, you don't," Vin sighed. "And you're right to doubt that I do either - hell, we all know how easily he can confuse me, how easily he can blind me when he wants to." He drew a deep breath and Josiah tensed, watching in case he was changing. But there was no shift in the color or in the stare itself - none of the life from before, either. "I can't speak of what I don't know. If it's Akmana, I can't tell, and I sure can't stop it. I don't think it is. I . . . " He swallowed then cleared his throat before saying, "I need this, Josiah. I need to feel human."

The anger surged through him, hard and fast, like fire. The words that came were from a part of himself he liked even less than the beast. But it didn't stop them from spewing forth with a venom he hadn't felt in decades. "This is your idea of what it means to be human? That - that - what you're doing with Chris - that's the lowest part of being human - it's what connects us to animals, to beasts!" He turned, expecting to see the blue eyes replaced in black, hoping for it. But the eyes that caught his were still the ones he knew, still blue, still tired. And touched with a glint of irony that Josiah understood almost as soon as the words he'd said echoed in his head.

Beasts. As they were now, all of them.

He barely curbed the desire to kick the desk again, settling instead for throwing the book he was holding, somewhat appeased by the noise it made when it hit the far wall then bounced to the floor. But the silence that followed was loud enough to mock him - and to remind him that they weren't alone in the house.

He felt more than heard the subtle vibrations that warned of the others moving, probably coming this way. In front of him, Vin said quietly, "Yeah, I reckon it is. It's the - the connection, I guess. Someone who I ain't afraid to touch. And someone who ain't afraid to touch me." He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. "I've known you a long time - hell, longer than either of us is happy about. And I know that you . . . well, I guess I know how you feel about this. Guess we wouldn't be here if you thought different." He drew a breath then went on just as softly, "I'm sorry you disagree with what I'm doing, what Chris and I are doing. But it's helping me to do what I need to do. Helping me to stop wishing I could get one of y'all to take off my head."

Josiah stared at him - but the disbelief he wanted, the desire for Vin to be bluffing, was a vague hope that wouldn't coalesce in the face of what he had seen of Vin since this whole mess had started.

He stared at Vin as the sound of steps coming up the stairs and down the hall grew louder, then Nathan's voice calling, "Josiah? You in there? You all right?"

Once again, Josiah found himself comparing now to 'then', the golden days of their innocence before the gypsy caravan had passed too near. 'Then', no one would ever have wondered at the sound of Josiah throwing something or cursing or screaming his wrath at God. 'Then', he would have been in his church, his sanctuary, alone.

Now, a strange noise, a loud noise, usually announced a fight for the control of Vin's body and mind, and none of them were allowed more solitude than a closed door, not when they were near Vin.

No, he wasn't all right. None of them were. And he was less 'all right' than he had been an hour before, the image of what he had seen on that bed, two men coupling, still clear in his memory.

Another irony, just as sharp as the first one: he had bolted through the door and into Vin's bedroom because of a noise very much like the one he had just made, the one that brought Nathan running. At least now, Vin had his clothes on.

"Josiah?" Nathan pushed open the door and charged in, his features tight with his worry.

Josiah stared at him, his thoughts tumbling around his head, overlapping, twining, all competing to get out of his mouth. Which is probably why the words that came out were not at all close to what he wanted to say. "Everything's fine."

Nathan was looking at Vin, the lines of his face drawn tighter. "Was that you falling down?" he asked, taking another step into the room. "You shouldn't be up - "

"I know," Vin cut him off, but he turned and met Nathan's eyes, not hiding. "We were talking," he said, "and I said the wrong thing."

Josiah sighed and shook his head, not sure whether to be relieved at the truth of it, veiled as it was, or at the fact that somewhere in the time they'd been forced to live together, Vin had mastered Ezra's abilities to subtly redirect a conversation. But that thought led him back to the spiral of his anger, the circular question of what was Vin and what was the demon and who was in control. Vin had always been direct, speaking his mind when he felt the need to speak. Silence, so much like Chris Larabee, had been his weapon and his defense when he didn't want to offer an opinion or a thought.

Over the long, hard years since the gypsies, Vin had learned how to use words. Part of it was the Seducer, the evil that inhabited him. But another part of it was what Vin, himself, had adapted, had learned to use words in this new land of forced relationships between the seven of them.

What was Vin and what was Akmana? As far as he could tell, Vin was as much himself as he could be, and he said it was what he wanted. The memory of the fire in his eyes, the desire on his face -

"You should be resting," Nathan said, but as he started forward, Chris appeared behind him.

"Leave him be," Chris said quietly but with the authority they all followed. "Vin knows his limits." The words were flat and cool, and directed straight at Josiah.

Josiah stared at the other man, but the anger that had come so easily minutes, seconds ago, was muted now. He wanted to feel it - wanted to hold Chris Larabee as responsible for Vin as he himself felt. But even as he tried to summon back the fury, the worst he could manage was contempt.

"Josiah," Vin said, and for the first time, Josiah heard worry in his voice. Worry for Chris, for what Josiah would think of him, what he might say in front of Nathan - not about Vin, but about Chris.

That spoke only of Vin, not of the demon. But it also spoke of Chris Larabee, either man or the half-beast he was, he was falling far from his human nature, perhaps farther than the rest of them. He'd been married, had a family that he had mourned long after the gypsies. If he was choosing this path with Vin . . . if.

"Nathan's right," he said, looking at Chris even as he spoke to Vin. "You should get some rest. We can talk about this more later."

He caught the slow movement in the corner of his eye, Vin's head turning as he looked from Josiah to Chris and back. For his part, Chris' gaze never wavered, as direct on Josiah as Josiah's was on him. Calm and cool, no anger but also no remorse. Chris Larabee never apologized.

"Come on, now," Nathan urged, slipping one hand under Vin's arm and guiding him to his feet. "Let's get you to bed, least for a while."

"Chris?" Vin said as he got his legs under him. He stumbled toward the doorway, reaching out a hand that Chris took carefully.

"You go on," Chris said, glancing at Vin. His eyes softened, warming as they lit on Vin, and Josiah saw the pressure of his fingers as he squeezed at Vin's hand. "I'll be along in a few minutes."

Vin's features tightened and he started to argue, but Chris lifted his chin just a little and arched one fine eyebrow. Vin's lips thinned but he didn't say anything, choosing instead to shake his head once, hard, before pulling away from Chris and making his way to the door. Nathan looked at Josiah, curious, but after a second, he followed Vin out, calling back over his shoulder, "Ezra's leaving soon, so if you want him to pick up anything, you'd best get downstairs."

Neither of them paid any mind. As Nathan made it through the door, Chris reached back and caught it by the edge to push it closed. It didn't slam but it did close a little harder than necessary. Not that Josiah cared.

Chris turned back and looked at him, his eyes no longer cool but as cold as Josiah had ever seen them. But he didn't have time to do more than recall the man he had seen so long ago, the one who could face down a gunman across a dirt street, waiting for the subtle sign that told him to it was time to draw. This time, Chris Larabee drew first.

"You got any idea what it's like for him? Having that thing inside him? Years ago, back when this whole thing started, Buck told me what it was like for Vin. I didn't believe him - hell, I didn't want to. I thought Buck was protecting him, feeling guilty because Akmana chose Vin instead of him. I was so angry then, at Vin, at the gypsies, at all of this, that I ignored what was clear in my head." He had been standing straight, his shoulders square and his chin thrust out. But somehow, he managed to stand even taller and more sure of himself. "We feel him, sometimes even hear what's in his head. Him and Akmana. And there's a damned big difference between them."

This was getting - tiresome, Josiah thought, all these new details about Vin and about Chris and Buck. They'd been stuck in this for too long now to just be learning things. But as the impact of the words caught up to him, the fury drained away. He shook his head and stepped back as he asked, "You know his thoughts?"

Chris shifted, too, a slight dropping of his shoulders and cant of his hips. "Sometimes. When we're - when we take blood from him. It's in the connection."

"And it's been there all the time," he asked, easing over to the chair Vin had left. He dropped heavily into it, looking up to watch Chris' face as he answered, annoyed but intrigued.

"Yeah, guess so. But I didn't . . . I was so angry that I didn't realized it, not for a long time."

"How long?" He should be taking notes, but it seemed too much of an effort.

Chris sighed. "I don't want to talk about that now, Josiah," he said, his voice sounding as tired as Josiah felt. "We can sit down with Ezra and Nathan and work it all out later, fill you in on all the details, if you really think they'll help. The point of this is that I know when it's Vin and when it's Akmana, at least when I'm connected to him by blood. And Vin - the man - wants this."

Josiah's stomach roiled and a wave a nausea caught him. Through clenched teeth, he asked, "Did he before? Were the two of you - " He caught himself, unable to say the words.

Chris barked out a laugh which sounded sincerely amused. "I committed a lot of fornication in my day, but not with a man. This is all new to me. I don't know about Vin - it wasn't something we talked about then and I don't think it matters now." He walked over to the desk and leaned back on it, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't worried on this, Josiah, on the cause of it. I ain't proud of what happened those first months - hell, maybe those first years." He looked away then, staring into the past, maybe, the times when, in the fury of fighting down the daevas and the heat of feeding, his sexual nature had controlled him. More than once, Josiah had been party to the fight to get Chris off of Vin before he went too far. Before he forced this very thing that Vin was submitting to now. "But what you saw tonight," he went on, his words biting with the effort to make himself say them, "wasn't like those other times. I still get the urge when I'm taking his blood, but I can control it - have been controlling it. What we do - " His voice caught, his discomfort clear in the way he shifted, drawing his arms closer to his body.

In another time and place, Josiah would have been amused and surprised to find Chris Larabee discussing this issue - it'd be far more likely that he'd have shot anyone who walked in and found him in such a situation. But that was then, another life ago. A life in which, if Chris were to be believed, that would never have happened.

Vin wasn't the only one who had changed, Josiah knew that, but the changes in Chris were perhaps the slowest to develop - and the easiest to see.

"What we do," he went on, each word slow and hard, dredged from some place inside himself Josiah doubted he'd ever see again, "is between us, and ain't nobody else's business. I ain't forcing him and he ain't forcing me. And that's all I ever need to say on the matter."

He glared at Josiah, daring him to argue or to challenge, daring him to push the conversation. And for a long moment, all the issues collided in Josiah's head and belly, the desperation they lived in, the unknowing, the constant weight of the responsibility for the supernatural force they hunted, in hopes of recapturing. The shaking of his trust in the man who led them, and in the man who held the one piece of Akmana that guided them - when it wasn't trying to kill them.

The truth of it came to him in shattering clarity, dredged up from a place inside himself that he knew he'd have no choice but to see again. What he had seen in that bedroom was disturbing, shaking his faith in the men he knew. But it was far more than that. He'd battled his father's God, his father's religion, for most of his other life, tried to put behind him those tenants and beliefs that worked against Christ's love. Before, while the sight of two men together might have made him uneasy, might even have made him spend a lot of time considering matters of sin and the soul, it wouldn't have stirred this level of reaction. Not even if he'd done exactly what he did tonight, walked in on two men he considered friends, considered to be people he knew well.

It was that what he'd seen, what they were doing, perhaps what they even felt for each other, if there were feelings involved in this at all, was a product of this new life, this unnatural pseudo-immortality, this nightmare that was going to end only when they fought a battle against an immortal demi-god that they had no way to win.

This rage was not about Chris fucking Vin, even though that was a part of it, but about how this whole new 'life' was fucking them all, forcing them to put aside everything they'd believed, everything they'd been.

Chris pushed himself up, but before he could get started forward, Josiah held up a hand.

"I don't like this," he said flatly, trying to concentrate on that one element, to sort out the reason why it was the trigger. "It's not right - and I don't mean just in terms of the morality. The seven of us are bound together too tightly now, and something like this - "

"Something like what?" Chris asked, his tone hard. "You think we're talking a broken heart down the line or some such? You said it yourself: we ain't who - or what - we used to be. If we were, this wouldn't be an issue. But we're as different from the men we were when this all started as night is from day. Buck and I can't have relations with women - and none of us would even dream of turning Vin lose in the world. The rest of you may have more options, but for now and for a damned long time, longer than I can even get my head to think on, me, Buck and Vin pretty much got each other." He stepped up to stand over Josiah, his eyes hot now with anger he'd been holding before. "You can not like it as much as you want, but it ain't up to you."

Josiah stared, his mind sorting through the words, but one thing was clear: Chris had come to the same enlightenment he had, but faster.

Chris wasn't finished just yet; he turned on his heel and took two steps toward the door then stopped and turned back. His tone was still bitter and his eyes bright, but his voice was low, barely more than a whisper. "Of all of us, Vin is the most human. That thing inside him hasn't changed who or what he is. That makes him different from us. If we got rid of the demon, he'd be just as human as he was. The rest of us can't ever go back."

It was a different way of looking at what had happened to them, one Josiah had yet to consider. He'd studied texts on possession - some before the gypsies had ended their lives, back in the period of rebellion from his father, when he had experimented with other religions and the radical fringes of his own Christian church.

Since the gypsies, he'd read everything that he could find, which, unfortunately, was not nearly as much as they needed. But there were constants that appeared in many of the things he'd found, and one of them was the belief that once the demon was cast out of a body, human or even animal, the body could return to the state that it was in before possession.

Distracted with these thoughts, Josiah didn't notice Chris leave until he heard the soft thunk of the door as it ground against its frame. The tiredness settled more deeply inside him, the anger burned down to coals of sadness. Over the long years since this had started, he'd fought to find acceptance for who and what they had become, acceptance in himself and in the others. But each time he thought he had found a measure of comfort or at least a place in his own mind where the resentment and frustration was outweighed by a sense of curiosity and peace, something changed. Lately, Akmana had been growing more clever, appearing with little or no warning, trying to make his bid for escape. They'd had to keep Vin restrained in the hours when Buck and Chris slept, or drugged, and it was taking more and more of the laudanum and morphine to keep the demon at bay.

And maybe that was why Vin wanted this . . . thing with Chris. On its own, taken alone and out of the fury, the idea of it was unsettling, but not as repugnant as it had seemed. He'd known men who preferred pleasure with their own kind, and during his rebellious youth, he'd even questioned in his own mind the tenants of a faith that preached love but also cast it aside. It wasn't in the act itself, it was the men, men he thought he knew, men he'd been living with for too long.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, trying to sort through all the different threads, the ones that still attached him to his old life, the ones that were twining together and growing stronger in this new one. It would have been so much easier if he could cut all the ties from the past, the old morality and reactions that no longer served a purpose for who they now were - the way that Chris and Vin were. But even as he thought it, he knew better and knew that Vin and Chris weren't as successful at the separation as it seemed. It was the attachment to that old life that kept them all human, that kept them aware of why they were doing this, why they were searching for the demon that was now free in the world.

To protect humanity, if possible. And to see if there was some way to save Vin's soul.

The irony of that caught him, an irony too great to ignore. What Vin and Chris were doing damned them in the eyes of most faiths, certainly the newer ones, the ones that they had known in their lives. But they - all seven of them - were already damned, their souls tainted by something over which they had no control, something older than they could truly understand.

And both Chris and Vin claimed that the thing over which they did have control, this thing between them that seemed more lust and violence than love, was the thing that would keep them human enough to reclaim their souls.

Fortunately, Josiah thought as he pushed up out of the chair and moved to stare out the window into the night, he could find more information on possession. It was already on his list of things to search for whenever they made it to a parish with a decent religious library.

But books and essays on the convolutions of saving thrice-damned souls, damned by gods so old that their names were forgotten, that was nigh on impossible to find. Perhaps he should write one. If they managed it.

He smiled into the darkness, thinking of his father. How the old man would have hated this, to find himself proven wrong on so many levels. But then, his father would have argued that it was all some sort of delusion, because his God was the one true God and anything else was the work of Satan. Perhaps he was right, but Satan or not, the evils they were fighting were real.

Real and as horrible to contemplate as the gods of old who had wrought them. That thought brought with it the image of what he had seen in that brief instance in the room, Vin on his knees on the bed, arched back, his long hair hiding Chris' face but not the blond of his hair or the length of his neck as he bent to Vin's throat. But it had been the expanse of bare skin, the erection projecting up from Vin's groin and sheltered in Chris' hand, the taut lines of muscle and tendon as they both worked for release. The stark trails of red that gleamed in the soft light cast by the gas lights, winding down Vin's chest, dripping from his wrists, smeared along the grimace of his lips.

With eyes as wide and blue and alive as he'd ever seen them.

Horrible and beautiful, like the gods and demons themselves.

As before, he heard the footsteps before they got to the door so he wasn't surprised when it eased open and Nathan asked, "You all right?"

He smiled, feeling the laughter well up inside him. No, he wasn't all right, but then none of them had been in decades. They'd just ignored the reality of it.

"Did he hurt you?" Nathan asked as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. "Josiah, are you hurt?"

He caught himself, hearing the worry, sincere worry, in his oldest friend's voice. He turned, meeting brown eyes he knew as well as he knew his own. Better than he knew a set of blue ones that had come to dominate his world. "I'm fine," he said quietly. "Did Ezra leave?"

Nathan frowned. "Hours ago. Buck and Chris,too. You've been up here a while. You hungry? There's chicken and biscuits left."

Josiah smiled and looked back out into the night. Nathan cared for all of them, but he'd always treated Josiah a little different. A little closer. Just as Chris had always treated Vin a little closer. If he and Nathan were in the same situation, isolated in a sea of humanity . . .

His mind could not fathom it, not right now. Instead, he drew a deep breath. "I think I am," he answered, turning away from the window to face the other man. "Join me?"

Nathan grinned, open and easy. He was in the place where things were, for the moment, all right. As Josiah had been mere hours ago.

It was a memory that was still close enough that he knew he couldn't take that from Nathan, not yet. And while he wanted to talk to someone, to air out his own thoughts on this mess, he knew himself well enough to know that he couldn't do that to - well, any of them, not just yet. As he had said to Chris, the ties between the seven of them were complicated and sometimes fragile. While the others might suspect, as he had done before he'd walked into that room, a confirmation made it a different situation all together. As he knew, too.

"I made tea," Nathan answered, "and I could always have another glass of that. Didn't you say you were going into town tomorrow? To the library? I want you to look for something for me. . . " As Nathan rambled on, Josiah let the familiarity of it soothe him. Maybe, he thought passingly, this was what Vin was talking about needing, the sureness of the mundane when everything else around them was so clearly not. It gave him some solace, enough to walk the delicate line between his old beliefs and his new nature, at least for tonight.


End file.
